Everest (2015) User Reviews

It's got more sting than one may think

[Rickting · 7/10 · 26 December 2015]

Everest looked like a generic disaster movie made purely for the big screen in the trailers. Not so. It tells the true story of a disastrous climbing expedition which took place in 1996. Since this is a true story, there's less room for the emotional manipulation and over the top set pieces which would have been expected. The film admirably follows the true story faithfully and doesn't sensationalize events. The way in which the film was marketed was misleading. There isn't as much action as the posters and trailers suggested. It's more of a realistic survival story than a big scale disaster flick. As a result, some may leave the theatre disappointed. Everest is an unexpectedly solid movie, but it certainly has its problems. There are definitely moments where the film loses your attention a bit, while a lot of the character deaths aren't given enough impact and seem rushed. In some ways, the part involving the climb to the top is more enjoyable than the slightly underdeveloped and occasionally rushed second half focusing on the disaster.

Still, this will surprise you. It's a tense movie rather than a really thrilling one, which is a pleasant surprise and shows the film's maturity and restraint. Despite the many characters, they are all developed enough to sympathise with. It's got a very good cast for a disaster movie, and they all give good performances. Even Keira Knightly and Sam Worthington are bearable. The film's big surprise is its emotional impact. This is a tragic story with one of the best- and saddest- final shots of the year. Not everyone makes it out alive. As a result, it's not as forgettable as it looked from the marketing. The direction is pretty good as well and doesn't show off the visuals, instead focusing on the suspense and the characters. Obviously it's not full of really developed characters, but not every film can be so that's not a problem. Everest is a solid, satisfactory survival film with a strong cast, tense set pieces and a surprise emotional punch, although it feels somewhat rushed despite it's 2 hour runtime.

7/10

Worth watching but could have been lots better

[fffuuuuu · 7/10 · 24 September 2015]

I think the main problem with this movie is a loose focus. It seems like they tried to make a disaster, drama and documentary stories at the same time but failed to develop any of that properly. But the good things first: stunning scenery, overall tension and a few really great scenes make this movie worth watching without a doubt. It is just somehow not working as a single piece. With a fast start you expect some eventful action to follow but there's nothing like that. The characters developing is limited to a couple of sentences excluding Rob Hall and Beck Weathers what makes others a little more than forgettable 'guys who die first'. For some reason, Scott Fisher, being a smart capable mountaineer is shown as a careless hippie-like person, Anatoli Boukreev as a cliché tough Russian playing garmon in a tent, Beck Weathers as a hardly-realistic guy from Texas. But it doesn't matter anyways as when the masks put on it's really hard to follow who is who and and their position on the mountain, especially on descending. The whole day of May 11 is clumsy and hardly could be learned from the movie, on the summit the story switches to Rob completely and gets distractingly touchy-feely then slowly turning into the aftermath. The drama feels a bit out of place when other participants dying with little or no attention. I was disappointed. The most vivid scene of the movie turned out to be shown in the trailer (crevasse ladder). Another Beck Weathers scene was really powerful too, but otherwise I didn't feel the pressure of surviving, the height itself (the stormy clouds could be seen from 2000 as well), an incredible effort to even try to step on that track.

Andre Bredenkamp writes about Everest climb: "You get completely disorientated. I had to keep reminding myself I was climbing a mountain. Every step of the way I had to try to motivate myself. At that altitude I took at least 10 to 15 breaths each time I moved one foot."

So if you really want to feel the height I would rather recommend to read the books about that night as this movie failed to show it properly.

I won't try climbing that mountain, that's for sure.

[deloudelouvain · 8/10 · 16 August 2016]

I am very surprised reading bad reviews about Everest. What did you expect it to be then? I sincerely did enjoy watching Everest. Also because it's based on a true story, what makes it even better to feel the despair they had at the end. It amazes me people would pay so much money to live an experience like that, where your life is at risk all the time. Okay it's a great achievement once you've done it, but I'd rather spend that money on a lazy sunny vacation trip. The fact is the top of the Everest is a graveyard with bodies of people that tried this expedition. The movie shows perfectly how hard it must be to climb the Everest. The lack of oxygen, the altitude, the sudden change of weather, it's all too much for a normal human body. The movie itself is beautifully shot, with good actors, a lot of tragedy. I didn't get bored for one second watching this movie. It keeps you on edge the whole time, because you can feel the courage and determination it takes to climb that mountain. Good movie if you ask me. Would watch it again in the future.

Death is like this, not like in the movies.

[ReadingFilm · 30 March 2019]

The fragility of life in hostile environments is a phenomenon cinema rarely depicts. It is so unusual that it can almost be witnessed as comedy here. They, first of all, have zero reason to be there at all. So they just go there, everything goes wrong and they freeze to death and then collapse to their doom. It's funny! The way he fell off the mountain. The way the other stripped his clothes off and fell off next. Brolin dying, then waking up with frostbite walking the rest of the way. The mailman having no foresight or sense of self-preservation at all. Gyllenhaal's surfer bro who just lays down and dies practically with a thumbs up. It all feels so surreal and primal. Death is like this, not like in the movies. The film is an anomaly, a blockbuster achievement for how things can go wrong; the way you lose accountability, get lost among groups, everyone working together but mix-ups with the people and the oxygen tanks. A chain effect of it all going south with one small misstep. 'He might as well be on the moon', it really felt like the film was taking us on an alien terrain. Going to see the director's other work to see if this was lightning in a bottle or he really is this good.

Top of the World looking down on creation

[bob-the-movie-man · 7/10 · 3 October 2015]

Having just this week returned from climbing all 19,341 feet of Kilimanjaro, I find myself intimately capable of reviewing "Everest", the new thriller from Icelandic director Baltamar Kormákur.

Based on a true story from 1996, Jason Clarke and Jake Gyllenhaal play Rob Hall and Scott Fischer respectively, rival organisers of commercial climbing ventures whose businesses involve training well-paying clients at Everest Base Camp and then taking them to the summit to experience the 'ultimate high'. When the climbing season of 1996 becomes hugely crowded, including a rather obnoxious team from South Africa, the two rivals decide it is in the interests of their clients to combine forces and attack the mountain together.

We are introduced to some of the clients including Texan Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin), second-attempt postman Doug Hanson (John Hawkes) and Japanese mountaineer Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori) chasing her seventh and final major mountain summit. Supporting the teams is hen-mother from base camp Helen Wilton (Emily Watson), medical helper Caroline Mackenzie (Elizabeth Debicki from "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.") and hard-man Anatoni Boukreev (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson) who eschews the use of such luxuries as oxygen. To add dramatic tension to the situation, Rob Hall's wife (Keira Knightley) is heavily pregnant with their first daughter.

In an extremely hostile environment, as a storm passes through, the film neatly characterises how a single impetuous decision can have devastating consequences.

The action scenes in the film are well-executed with a number of vertiguous shots and heart-in-the-mouth moments, neatly escalated by Dario Marianelli's effective score. At its heart this is (without remembering the details of the original news story) a "will they, won't they" survival story of the ilk of "The Towering Inferno" and other classic disaster movies.

However, despite the long running-time and relatively leisurely built-up, I found there to be a curious lack of connection between the viewer and most of the key players. Perhaps this stems from the fact that you know they were all fully aware of the potential dangers? Or perhaps that the mountain seems a bigger character that any of the humans involved? Whatever the reason, it's only the future parental responsibilities of Hall that really resonate and make you root for him as opposed to any of the other characters.

Some of the hardest special effects to pull off are those that depict the natural world (as opposed to Krypton, Asgard etc), and in this regard the team led by Jonathan Bullock (from the Harry Potter series) does a great job. Whilst the "top of Everest" was in reality a set in the Pinewood 007 stage, you'll well believe a man can freeze there.

As such, this is a decent and entertaining telling of a true-life tragedy that will definitely work better on the big screen than the small.

(If you found this review useful please see the graphical version at bob-the-movie-man.com and enter your email address to receive future reviews. Thanks).

Wish it were better

[gmd4462-623-52926 · 6/10 · 26 September 2015]

Like the real mountain, this movie is stunning to look at but a little painful to watch. I kept longing for the voice-over guy from The Deadliest Catch to chime in with some compelling back story about the characters or the situation, just to ramp up the tension a little. We don't get much time to get to know the characters; most of their lines are designed mainly to give us information rather than developing their individual personalities. We are left with archetypes: the Loudmouth Texan, the Humble Mailman, the Brash Adventurer, the Careful Tour Guide, the Taciturn Journalist. And then there's the annoying Keira Knightly, on hand with her squeaky mouse voice and her runny nose, to make sure everyone in the audience has a good cry.

I wish the movie had been more about Rob Hall--his hubris and his heroism is really the heart and soul of this story. But you can't have everything in two hours, can you?

Almost reaches the top

[lucasversantvoort · 7/10 · 18 November 2015]

If, when you think of Everest, you think of a film where a bunch of suicidal people embark on a basically pointless expedition, then (unlike the main characters) you're on the right track. Okay, that's selling the film short a bit. The fact is that Everest is what you might call a slow-burn thriller. But we'll get to that in a minute.

Rob Hall is a guide for the people willing to climb Mount Everest. Several people have signed up and are assigned to his team, so he says goodbye to his pregnant wife and gets on the plane to Nepal. Rob and his group of climbers head to base camp near Mount Everest where they meet the rest of the team and prepare for their arduous climb.

It's the attention paid to this preparatory part of the film where we get an idea of who these people are and why they do what they do. When I saw the trailer, I was expecting an action-packed modern action flick, but I was pleasantly surprised by the time spent in these preparatory phases. It's all too easy to succumb to relentless action without laying the groundwork in advance. Ideally, by allowing the audience to get to know the characters well in advance, the emotional payoff is supposed to be greater when there's trouble brewing.

The keyword here is 'supposed'. Whether or not the early character development is adequate enough to tug at anyone's heartstrings depends on the people behind the camera. It's here where the film can fall a bit flat, particularly in its attempts to explain character motivation, why do these characters (and by extension, similar people in real life) risk their lives just to make it to the highest peak on the earth? Each character provides different answers and we kind of understand them, but the film never really digs deeper. After all, there's a pretty huge mountain to climb which leads us to the best aspect of Everest...

...the cinematography. No, not the 3D, the actual cinematography. The 3D is decent, but the way the film looks and feels doesn't just come from a gimmick like 3D. Great production design and cinematography look great on their own and aren't necessarily improved by 3D glasses. The Everest looks and 'feels' immense, the snow and ice feels cold. There's a few instances of makeup that also impress, particularly when one character wakes up hours after falling asleep high on Mount Everest. When he wakes up, it looks like the only way he'd get the frost off his face is if his face came off with it. Nothing wrong with Everest in the visual department.

The action scenes themselves are thankfully quite grounded. You won't find any flashy editing techniques around these parts. This extends to the death scenes as well which I find very refreshing. Think about it: you've got a film about climbing Mount Everest. It's the perfect opportunity for literal cliffhangers where one guy always says how he just...can't...hold on...much longer. But Everest avoids these pitfalls (pun intended) and when someone falls in the mist-filled abyss, we don't even see him drop; he just disappears from view while the camera remains centered on the point where he just stood. It's this lack of audience manipulation that I'd like to see more of.

And that's Everest in a nutshell: a visually stunning experience that prefers characters over action. If only the character development itself was a just a little more fleshed out, we'd have a real winner on our hands. On a scale of base camp to summit, I give this a camp four.

No good guys, no bad guys, just the facts as they are known

[thegreatape · 9/10 · 15 September 2015]

I always find my viewing experience of the retelling of historical events ruined when I come across scenes which I know have been added for dramatic effect or when someone is played as a bad guy just to let us know who to root for.

The King's Speech was particularly guilty of the former, the portrayal of other teams in Glory Road had the latter, and The Imitation Game was shamelessly guilty of both. I'm not saying this made them bad films, but it certainly made me feel like the experience had strayed away from a retelling of the facts as known.

Everest is everything that is good in such a film. There is no needless good v evil addition and no leading the viewer to conclusions. It tells the story and I have since spent three or four days thinking about the hows, whys and wherefores... whilst knowing I will never find an answer.

The other touch that really elevates this film is that there are no added action sequences that have been added to make Everest more of an action move. The film makers have been intelligent enough to realise that climbing Everest does not need any exaggeration, the characters involved were three dimensional people, and the story was interesting enough not to need embellishment.

I expected an action film but left pleasantly surprised by a biopic with a light touch.

The one mark deduction is for the totally unnecessary 3D. The film absolutely didn't need me wearing dumb glasses to be three dimensional.

Tense and beautiful, but lacking fleshed-out characters.

[Troy_Campbell · 6/10 · 18 September 2015]

Based on real life events in 1996, this dramatic thriller tells the story of Kiwi mountain-climber Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) as he leads a group of mountaineering enthusiasts on an expedition to the peak of Mt. Everest. Kicking off with Hall and his team boarding a plane to Nepal, there's very little backstory provided for any of the numerous players being followed, with the focus squarely on their physically demanding journey ahead. And here's the rub: the film homes in so intently on the climb itself, with gorgeous cinematography and tense, cleverly designed set pieces, that it doesn't take the time to actually make us care for those in this life-threatening situation. Additional groundwork from the onset getting to know the eclectic group of adventurers better could have upped the ante even more, adding extra heft in the second half when things don't go according to plan. Yet there's no denying Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur (Contraband, 2 Guns) presents the action and generates thrills with impressive craftsmanship, aided by seamless CGI and Salvatore Totino's Oscar-worthy photography. It's one of those rare motion pictures where the employment of 3D genuinely intensifies the experience too, lending depth and height to the extraordinary environment that is Mt. Everest. Kormakur also lands a cast to die for – including Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Hawkes, Josh Brolin, Keira Knightely, Robin Wright and Emily Watson – but wastes most of them, especially the women, in slight roles with no meat on the bones. Everest is a solid cinematic outing with just enough excitement and tension to compensate for the frustratingly underdeveloped characters.

Good movie, Great theatre experience

[jackgradis · 8/10 · 2 September 2015]

Got the chance to see Everest early in IMAX 3D. I'll start off by saying this, if you get the chance, definitely see this movie in IMAX. It adds to the experience and you feel like your on the mountain. That aside, let's dive into one of my most anticipated films of the year.

Everest is chalk full of star power. Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, Keira Knightley, Jake Gyllenhaal, the list goes on. Everyone is believable in this hostile environment, going from optimistic and adventurous to mortified and forced to fight for their lives. Each character is given a back story, some more drawn out and centered than others, and you get attached to most but not all of them. When the emotional blows hit, they hit hard for some, but not as much for others.

The visuals are, as you might have guessed, stunning. The shots they get of climbers and the way the camera gives you an an idea of how dangerous this is are breath taking. The cinematography is definitely award worthy. IMAX only added to it, putting you in this environment and taking you along for the ride.

This film really did it for me because I have always been fascinated by Everest and the journey it is to make it up to the top and back. If there is a Netflix documentary about Everest, I've watched it. I even watched the one about the story told in this movie. What this film does so well is it immerses you into the environment as well as gives you characters to care about. It's all tied in well together.

At times, the pace is a bit slower than expected and the tones shifts from serious to light hearted are a bit messy. But that stuff doesn't bother you in the moment, your just wrapped up in the intensity of the story.

Overall, Everest gave me exactly what I wanted. It was intense, emotionally powerful, and the visuals were beautiful. It's not perfectly structured, but it sure is engaging. As someone who has studied the mountain, this offers a brutal look into how much time and energy is out into a trip to Everest, and how quickly things can go wrong. Definitely worth a trip to the theatre.

Impressively Realistic

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 13 March 2016]

In 1996, the leaders of the commercial expeditions Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness, Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) and Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), decide to team up to climb the Everest together. After the brief preparation and training, they attempt to reach the summit. However a blizzard strikes the Everest and they need to urgently descent the mountain. Rob loses some clients and when the oxygen bottle runs out, Rob discovers that there are no spare bottles on the location that it should be. His friend Doug Hansen (John Hawkes) falls off the path and dies and Rob is stranded near the top of the Everest. Meanwhile Scott is totally exhausted and his clients continue to descent leaving Scott, the veteran Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori) and the Texan Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) behind. Later the rescue team succeeds in saving Beck that has lost both hands and nose. In the end, the survivors return home and Rob's corpse is left in Everest.

"Everest" is an impressively realistic film based on a true story. It is hard to see what is real and what special effects along the film are. The screenplay uses personal dramas entwined with the lead story and the direction is tight. The cast with famous names has great performance and this film is highly recommended. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Everest"

Like climbing the famed mountain, watching "Everest" is a harrowing, but rewarding experience.

[CleveMan66 · 8/10 · 18 September 2015]

"I want to see Everest". Could you be a bit more specific? Assuming that you're not talking about making a trip to Nepal, there are still many ways to interpret your request besides seeing the 2015 docudrama. The world's tallest mountain is the center of the story in a 1998 documentary, a 2007 TV mini-series, a 2014-2015 TV series and another film project still in development. All of these treatments are simply titled, "Everest". More to the point, 2015's "Everest" (PG-13, 2:01) re-tells the specific story from the '98 doc and a 1997 TV movie ("Into Thin Air: Death on Everest"), but tells it more vividly than ever before.

The '97, '98 and 2015 films all take us along for doomed expeditions up the tallest peak in the Himalayas in May 1996, as told in at least five books by survivors, most famously in journalist Jon Krakauer's 1997 best-seller "Into Thin Air", which is the primary basis for the screenplay of 2015's "Everest". As the film tells us early on, by the late 1980s, climbing Everest had transitioned from the domain of adventurers like George Mallory and Edmund Hillary with minimal equipment to a tourist destination for thrill-seekers with little climbing experience, but enough money to buy state-of-the-art equipment, stay in established base camps, and hire local Sherpas as guides and, in some cases, to carry the climber's gear and cook meals. But as the films about the 1996 climbs (and subsequent major avalanches) have shown, no amount of money, gear, help or even experience can insulate anyone from the dangers inherent in this climb. "The last word," as one character in the 2015 film says, "always belongs to the mountain." "Everest" follows two of the expeditions which suffered tragic losses on the mountain on May 10-11, 1996. Rival expedition leaders Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), of the company Adventure Consultants, and Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), of Mountain Madness, decide to work together due to the large number of people trying to reach the peak on May 10th. The main focus of the story is Hall's team, which includes people with a wide range of personal backgrounds. Hall is an experienced New Zealand mountaineer who has already climbed to the top of Everest four times, including once with his wife, Jan (Keira Knightley), who has stayed in New Zealand this time due to her pregnancy. Doug Hansen (John Hawkes) is a mailman who attempted Everest once before and wants to reach the summit as a way of inspiring schoolchildren back home in Washington state. Yasuko Namba is a 47-year-old Japanese woman who has already climbed the other six of the famed Seven Summits and wants to become the oldest woman to reach the top of Everest. Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) is an adventurous Texan who is also pursuing the goal of the Seven Summits, but has lied to his wife, Peach (Robin Wright), about his current trip to Everest. Jon Krakauer is a writer for "Outside" magazine, but has never been on a climb above 8000m. Several of the people portrayed in this film died on Everest and others barely escaped with their lives.

"Everest" is much more than a high-altitude adventure movie or disaster flick. Besides learning about the personal backgrounds of the characters, we follow them on their entire adventure, from beginning to end, learning a good bit about mountain climbing along the way. One of the first things we learn is that, to these people, summit is a verb. Hall lays out the dangers of summiting Everest in his briefing to his team before they even set foot on the mountain. "Human beings are not designed to function at the cruising altitude of a 747. Your bodies will be literally dying," he says. This group understands all that, but they've put their trust in the honest, personable and level-headed Hall. And they've paid him a lot of money ($65,000 each) to get them to the top of Everest – and safely back down. At base camp, Hall and his friend and colleague, Helen Wilton (Emily Watson), and their fellow Adventure Consultants employees, teach, coach and take care of their customers, including Hall taking them on some practice climbs. In spite of the danger and discomfort that everyone experiences even going only partially up the mountain, they're all looking forward to the real thing. They know they'll be cold, exhausted and scared, while having trouble breathing and facing the unpredictability of the mountain, but they didn't come this far to quit. Their experiences turn out much worse than anything any of them could have imagined.

"Everest" is a fascinating and gripping adventure. Like other movies about mountain climbing, this one fails to give a satisfactory reason for why these people risk their lives for little more than a great view and bragging rights, but it's clear that there are a variety of justifications within the group. The script depicts this climb as an extremely risky venture, but allows us to marvel at the courage, determination and, in some cases, self-sacrifice of these people. The character development (thanks to a great script and a terrific cast) is outstanding and the cinematography is as impressive as you'd expect (especially in IMAX 3-D). The suffering of the climbers (even when things are going according to plan), the thrilling moments (when circumstances throw the plan into chaos), the heartbreak and the small victories along the way all make us feel like we're right there on that mountain. The hardships and the tragedies of this expedition are sometimes shot and edited oddly, but are never exploitive. Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur brings us an engaging, eye-opening and beautiful film that most are likely to appreciate. "A-"

Everest - review, 6/10

[aadamhgafar-68237 · 6/10 · 15 April 2018]

Everest is based on the true story of Robert Hall and Scott Fischer's expedition to the summit of Mount Everest. It's a premise that suggests an emotional character-driven story of two men braving the elements as the ascend Everest. Unfortunately, the movie never reaches the dizzying heights that its title suggests.

There are some elements of the movie that do really well; the majesty of Everest is excellently captured with beautiful aerial shots and visceral down-to-earth shots of the climbers which convey the lethality of Everest, imbuing the movie with a sense of tension throughout. However, this effect is severely diminished by the lack of characterisation that is the movie's greatest flaw.

Primarily suffering from a lack of focus, it attempts to introduce the characters of all those involved in the real life expedition, perhaps this was as a homage to them and their families but it stopped the movie having a clear protagonist. Additionally, the development that these characters get is very, very limited. It may be that the adherence source material was the downfall of this movie as there is a distinct lack of any character arcs.

As such, emotional moments are scarce. Despite the many on-screen tears, you will be hard-pressed to find yourself feeling for these climbers you barely know no matter how well-acted they are (and they are, Jason Clarke as Rob Hall stands out). Thinking on it, I can only recall the one scene which really struck a chord with me (once again, sold very well by Clarke) but, on the whole, I was apathetic to the plight of the climbers.

Do not expect this movie to blow you away with a story about people and their attempt to conquer Mount Everest, it settles for being a half-baked disaster movie that spends a lot of time building itself up only to sabotage its own potential with poor development of the cast.

Everest: Cool shots, not much more

[evbach · 4/10 · 15 August 2016]

To start, there are some positives in the film. The cinematography is excellent, with both the real-life backgrounds and CGI sequences blending very well. Along with this, the film also does a good job with creating an atmosphere for the audience. Things such as the special effects and the sound editing help to involve the audience in the film and make it seem, to some extent, that they are there on the mountain with the characters.

Aside from the previously mentioned things, nothing in the film exceeds mediocrity. There are attempts in the first half of the film to set up an emotional backstory and a family subplot for multiple characters. However, so little time is spent on the topics that they come off feeling completely unnecessary. This is made worse due to the fact that the family elements actually end up being revisited and take up a considerable amount of time in the final act of the film.

The script and performances by the cast range from average to bad and never really exceed what you would expect from a summer blockbuster. This is made even more disappointing because Jake Gyllenhaal, one of the most talented actors working today, was wasted in the film, barely filling and screen time.

Finally, the characters in the film are in constant danger, which is suppose to be the main "thrilling" element that is suppose to engage the audience. However, due to the lack of depth given to each character, it just leaves you not caring about the fates of the characters. Also, due to the large number of characters in the film, it is hard to keep track of their faces, let alone their names. This is especially true during the chaotic parts of the film, when you can barely see anything, let alone the faces of the people in the film.

Overall, "Everest" looks very nice, but nothing else in the film is done particularly well, with it never being able to exceed the level of a below average summer Hollywood blockbuster.

Flawed.

[Incendid · 6/10 · 20 September 2015]

Everest is a film that tells the story of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which a climbing expedition is devastated by a severe storm. The film was directed by 2 Guns director Baltasar Kormakur and written by William Nicholson (Gladiator, Les Miserables) and Oscar winner Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours), starring Jason Clarke, John Hawkes and Josh Brolin. To start the film is beautiful; the director of photography Salvatore Totino presented the size and scale of the environment beautifully with multiple aerial shots. Totino has a clear and linear style, which is refreshing after the summer, which with the exception of a couple of films, has been dominated by shaky-cam and extremely quick cuts.

The dialogue in the film stands out, however the plot does not. The characters were underdeveloped, partially due to the lack of introduction that is given to our main characters; this combined with the slow pace of the first act causes the film to drag. However it should be noted that the film makes a point of showing the process of preparing to climb Everest. The second act is fine, not great though and is intense especially during the storm and finally the film just finishes, which really throws you out of the film.

Although none of the performances in the film were award-worthy they still were acceptable and in some cases quite good. Jason Clarke and Josh Brolin had the meatiest roles, and they both provided good performances. However out of the two, Jason Clarke provided the best performance. The side characters were forgettable, with the exception of Doug (John Hawkes) and Yasuko (Naoko Mori), with Doug being a postman and Yasuko finally completing the seven summits, two things which helped to distinguish them. Everyone in the film was 'care-beared', thankfully, and they had to be otherwise it would impossible to tell who you were looking at.

One part of production that deserves praise in this film is the lighting department who did a superb job on presenting a clear environment; especially during the storm. A quick side note- the score of the film was forgettable.

Ultimately, Everest is an intense drama thriller that has its problems, however is still beautiful to watch, I wouldn't purchase it on 3D Blu-ray, as after watching it in 3D I didn't find anything spectacular or noteworthy, however I would consider buying it on Blu-ray. Overall, I am going to give Everest a C+ or 6/10.

Everest was hard to watch. It was kinda rocky & way too depressing. Still, the film was worth the climb

[ironhorse_iv · 7/10 · 26 September 2015]

This movie was indeed a hard mountain to climb over. It's even harder to watch, when you, stop and think, that people indeed die, trying to make this movie. While, the movie was being filmed in Nepal in 2014, an avalanche struck, while the second unit crew was shooting remaining scenes of the film at Camp II on Everest, killing 16 Sherpa guides. The Sherpas were carrying equipment and supplies for the filmmakers. Lucky for the film production, they were not present where the disaster took place, but they were nearby. Indeed, that was close-call. Still, this movie was released, way too soon after April & May 2015 Nepal earthquake. That disaster alone, triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest, killing at least 19; making April 25, 2015 the deadliest day on the mountain in history. So, I really don't get, why the film distributer, Universal Studios really felt, like this was a good year to release this film. I guess, they were really trying to capitalize on the recent Mount Everest craze. I really don't like, the idea of people capitalize on people's death, but whatever; at least, they could push the release date, Sept 2, 2015 back, a few months later, for a little more, for respect for the recent victims. Anyways, like the 1998's IMAX film that share the same name, Everest tells the story of the same event. Everest tells the story of the 1996 Everest disaster, when eight people were caught in a blizzard and died on Mount Everest during a summit attempt. Directed by Baltasar Kormákur and based on Jon Krakauer's bestselling book, 'Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster' and Beck Weathers' novel, 'Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest'. The movie is a tear-jerker, disaster film. Without spoiling the movie, too much, I have to say, the movie is pretty much, historic accuracy to many of the film portrayal of true events. However, there are somethings worth noting that didn't happen, weren't mention or was change at the last second. First off, there were a lot more other team expeditions that were climbing the mountain, those days, besides the South African, Mountain Madness & the Adventure Consultants. There was a Japanese, Taiwanese, and Indo-Tibetan expeditions, climbing, both from the North Col & South Col side. There is no mention about the three-man expedition attempting to become the first Indian team to reach the top of Everest from the northeastern route in this film. Another thing that the film fails to mention is that the helicopter that was sent to help them, rescue two people, rather than one. One of those survivors in the helicopter rescue, wasn't even discussed in the film. Another thing, the movie didn't show, was that the helicopter pilot took two dangerous helicopter trips from base camp to Everest. Still, for the most part, it was pretty intense movie. Not because of the action, but because of how grim, the settling are. The movie has some really good moral messages, worth exploring. Explores issues of life and death, such as when is a dream, worth risking your life? Another question would be, when is it OK to abandon morality and save yourself -- or to stand by someone even if it could cost you your safety? It's a movie about ethics and what does it takes to be a team. All the actors show this. They were pretty good in their roles. They all, look like they could be real mountain climbers. Jason Clarke as the leader, Robert Hall is perfectly cast as organized, detail-oriented man. Josh Brolin is great as Beck Weathers, as the fearful newbie, trying hard to fit in, while, not show, how scare, he really is. John Hawkes is wonderful as Doug Hansen, the ordinary every man trying to do the unordinary. Jake Gyllenhaal as Hall's foil, wild ski bum/mountaineer Scott Fischer was pretty interesting. Last, worth noting is the delightful, Naoko Mori as Yasuko Namba, a woman so driven to reach all of the Seven Summits, that you can't help, cheering for her. I really like, how the film gave enough time, for each one of the team members, to have a little bit of character development, and backstory. Most of the characters in the film were pretty memorable. I just wish, the movie focus a little more of a few core characters than everybody. It was hard to keep track, of each of these character. It was even harder to comprehend, what's going on, when the blizzard scenes hit, because you can barely see them, hear them or see the surroundings. Also, once the characters put on all their gear on, most of the characters are hard to distinguish, unless you memorize what were they wearing. Sadly, the IMAX 3D isn't worth the price, because of this. I don't recommended. Most of the 3rd act is in night & blizzard, so you wouldn't even see anything, anyways. The 1998 IMAX movie is better to watch for the visuals, than this, in my opinion. Another movie worth checking out is 1997's Made-for-TV movie Into Thin Air: Death on Everest was also based on the same events. Overall: Everest is tragic, but watchable. This gripping drama is a harsh mountain of a film, worth checking out.

More should have been brought out of it

[kosa-matyas · 6/10 · 6 January 2016]

Run-of-the-mill, definitely an average film. The soundtrack was utterly boring, Baltasar Kormákur could have utilized the script much more. Eventually it is a drama, terrible tragedies happened to the climbers.

The moment when they reached the summit of the everest in my opinion was too weak emotionally, not any dramatic catharsis nor emotive upheaval. I really missed these feelings. The memorable events and turning points was primitive and did not bring forth deep sentiment. For example when Scott Fischer died, not any portentous moment which caught me. The dead came and Fischer accepted it and fell into sleep, end of story. Naturally in case of Rob Hall(when he was dying) it was grandiose because Keira Knightley's acting was enthralling in that scene. Summarizing: Could have been a classic film if Terrence Malick would have directed it.

Seeing what these folks went through makes you wonder....why?!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 13 September 2022]

"Everest" is a true-life story about a very bad year for those trying to ascend Mount Everest. While folks dying there is NOT unusual (heck, the mountain is apparently littered with dead bodies of those who have failed), this was a particularly bad year and the film does a good job of recreating the hellish climb and conditions the folks went through in order to check this dangerous feat off their bucket lists.

While I thought everyone in the film was foolish, the filmmakers did a great job of making you feel as if you are there....no small feat. So, technically speaking the film is brilliant and making it must have been an awful experience in many ways. As for the story, it's also compelling even if I thought the people were foolish....and this actually surprised me. My only fault with the film is that it would have been nice if the characters had been more fleshed out and multidimensional. Still, it's well worth seeing...and must have been incredible to see on the big screen as it's quite a spectacle.

Tragic 1996 climb of Mt Everest.

[TxMike · 12 July 2018]

I managed to watch this on an HBO channel while hanging out in the Colorado Rockies for a few days. It is a pretty well filmed story of the tragedy on the Everest climb in May 1996. Several people died, including some experienced guides, when the weather turned mean. Perhaps the best part of the movie is the first half, showing the people and what it takes to train and pay for such an adventure.

I remember it because Beck Weathers, a Dallas area physician, was one of the men in the expedition. He had some grave difficulties and was left for dead on the mountain. However he stumbled down the mountain in the morning, badly frostbitten, eventually losing part of his right arm plus all the fingers on his left hand, parts of both feet, and part of his nose. But he survived in what turned out to be a most expensive and life-changing experience.

I believe I'll stay on my comfortable couch and watch it.

Worth Watching Just for its Cinematography and Effects and Pretty Much Nothing Else

[DareDevilKid · 7/10 · 28 September 2015]

Reviewed by: Dare Devil Kid (DDK)

Rating: 3/5 stars

"Everest" boasts all the dizzying cinematography a person could hope to get from a movie about mountain climbers in today's times, even if it's content to tread a less challenging narrative terrain. Sadly, the scenes of peril and danger don't have the breathtaking, gut- wrenching wallop you'd expect from a movie about people pitting themselves against the highest peak on the planet, even if the visuals do well in establishing where the many climbers were on the mountain on that fateful day, and the very real, mortal dangers that lurk beneath the beauty of this place.

What's really remarkable and effective about "Everest" is that, on a visual level, it's thoroughly convincing. There is not a single moment here that looks like it was computer-generated or shot against a green-screen, though in actuality it was. Also, the film succeeds in showing the logistics necessary in such a climb.

Eventually, "Everest" is worth seeing because of the visual beauty and daring camera-work involved. The story itself is a downer and only accomplishes in highlighting the folly and insurmountable risks of such a trek. If you do decide to see it, make sure you get the 3D, IMAX treatment – it's so involving that you leave the theater checking for frostbite and never wanting to look at a mountain again, which in all probability is this movie's actual accomplishment.

Very immersive disaster movie.

[valleyjohn · 8/10 · 11 September 2015]

This is the true story of two different expeditions in 1996 who attempt to scale Everest but encounter massive storms on the descent down the mountain. Everest is a stunning looking film that you come away from , feeling totally exhausted. Because it is so realistic you do feel you are with the climbers at times. Sure , it's a stock disaster movie but because of the nature of the true story behind it , you feel more connected. The special affects are amazing and the performances from Jason Clarke and Keira Knightley are great too. I watched this in 3D but ended up taking the glasses off because it was so annoyingly dark so i recommend watching it in 2D instead. It's a staggering statistic that 1 in 4 people who attempt to get get to the summit of Everest , dies. Why do people do it? that question is asked in this film but apart from the stock answer of " Because it's there" it is never really answered . Perhaps there isn't one?

Is the glory really worth the risk?

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 23 December 2021]

Certainly stunning to look at, this film about a 1996 trek to the top of Mount Everest really shows the narcissism involved in most of the participants, risking their lives simply just to get their name onto the list of survivors or on the list of the hundreds being mourned. If anything, this film is a deterrent from making the journey and the risk, especially when the group passes by a few corpses that did not make it an obvious slid down only to die of their wounds or other unnatural causes.

An all-star cast (Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Robin Wright, Kiera Knightley among them) play the participants in this journey or their family members, worried about them from afar. You can see the motivations for pretty much all of the characters, some honorable and brave but others rather cocky and egotistical. Every time a potential disaster hits, I would say to myself, "If that was me, I would die", and fortunately, these incidents for the most part seem to be presented realistically and when a tragedy does happen, it is shocking and vicious as nature can be sometimes.

You get to see a little bit of the Indian culture as the group travels to the slopes far out of the city, and even from a distance, the range looks seriously dangerous. Nature is unpredictable, and when wind storms and avalanches and other natural events take place, there's no escaping it. I was feeling queasy just watching the people cross over the very high up pedestrian bridge above a gorge, and having done some hiking on much smaller mountain ranges, my fear was real knowing how I panicked even trying to get across a gorge in the Hollywood Hills at Runyeon Canyon let alone a bunch of miles above sea level.

Fortunately so, the film does not go to deep into the personal lives of these characters because that would be distracting and take away from the real issues they face. There's no sentimentality here at all and that is a very good thing. It is that directness within the script that eventually has everybody working together to make sure as many people as possible is able to get down and back home. So I can say while I did not like all of the characters, eventually I did begin to root for them even though my initial Impressions were not so great.

The photography is stunning, and the action during the storm sequences is nail biting. Discussions of how the brain adapts unsuccessfully to the change in oxygen level does bring on some shocking sequences including someone coughing up blood. This is a type of film where the viewer is perfectly content either sitting in a comfortable seat in the movie theater or on their own couch, and anybody who has the inclination to want to try this may be easily convinced otherwise after seeing it.

Majestic! I had never experience anything like it.

[Ramascreen · 10/10 · 6 September 2015]

A movie that's as stunning and as majestic and as spellbinding as mount Everest itself. Even for many of us who've never been to Nepal, just the fact that Everest is the world's highest mountain requires us to respect it from afar. And I think that's what this film by director Baltasar Kormakur has accomplished, it respects the story, it respects the nature and it respects the memories of the lives lost during that tragic 1996 expedition.

Baltasar is an Icelandic filmmaker who knows how to shoot a film in such an environment where the weather can be unpredictable and it can go against you at anytime. He didn't want all of this movie to be shot entirely in a studio, this is not entirely visual effects work, they actually went to Nepal and some of the other locations include Val Senales, Italy. It's out there in the elements, outdoors locations that force even the actors themselves to leave their trailer comfort zone behind. And that is evident on screen, it really shows, because every single frame successfully makes us the audience feel like we're there, we feel the danger, as if we're there climbing the mountain, feeling the pain that comes with excruciating cold because human bodies aren't design to survive such temperature. I think the timing of the arrival of this movie could not have been more perfect. If EVEREST was made a decade or fifteen years ago, for example, when filmmaking technology and the cameras weren't as advanced, I'm not sure if it could've given us a movie-watching experience of this quality. This is not a heist thriller ala 1993's "Cliffhanger," this is an epic survival drama.

Many of us are familiar with Jon Krakauer's book, "Into Thin Air" since he himself was one of the climbers, but this movie is not an adaptation, because it's also loosely inspired by other accounts, other books about that same expedition, so in a way, what the scribes William Nicholson and also Simon Beauty and filmmaker Baltasar gave us is a reimagining but one that captures the essence and I think that's what the actors themselves aimed to do. Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Jason Clarke, all of them play these real characters that have families, some may have personal issues, and so the backstory or who's waiting for them on the other side of the world serve as an emotional anchor and a driving force. But you only get a glimpse of it, the script doesn't spend too much time in every last one of them, there are too many grounds to cover, so it provides just enough and then brings the attention back to this whole man vs. nature, this ordeal at hand, all over again, just like one of the characters says in the movie, "The last word belongs to the mountain." EVEREST movie does make me wonder why anyone would want to climb mount everest, but it's basically the same as asking ourselves why we do certain things, why we choose to attempt to conquer certain goals, whatever they may be, whether it's the need to inspire and be inspired, whether it's trying to escape our problems, whether it's the love of the climb, EVEREST goes to show that that desire could be both prideful and humbling.

Difficult to relate to.

[hartj-75983 · 7/10 · 24 June 2021]

A bunch of mostly rich and entitled thrill seekers go out and do something stupid and dangerous and get themselves killed.

The script demanded an 'ordinary guy' so that people might care about the rest of the idiots but I'm not so easily manipulated.

It's a well made film which is why it's 7/10 from me but the kind of people featured in this movie are the cause of most of the world's problems.

Taller tales have been better told for shorter mountains

[dynamicstardust · 5/10 · 24 December 2015]

Everest is not a bad movie, but it isn't a pretty one either, it's pretty bad! especially for anyone who has viewed mountaineering and/or survival themed movies before.

Cinematography: The cinematography is certainly good. Some panoramic scenes are breathtaking and successfully convey the awesomeness of the task that is scaling the Everest.

Music score: I can't recall now if the movie even has an original music score or any music at all. A rather odd exception for a movie that is bound to have elements of suspense and intense human drama.

Casting: There are some big names in the cast, who have been assigned small parts and the lead roles given to relative and complete unknowns. The audience has an obvious expectation of the significance of a character based on the reputation of the actor playing that part. Now, big names are sometimes used to play characters that die early and unexpectedly to put the reassured audience in a state of shock and real sense of danger about the remaining characters. However, Everest employs no such ploy. The casting is just plain nonsensical.

Character development: Rarely have I seen a movie that does a worse job of character development than Everest. There is a lot of time spent on absolutely irrelevant small-talk, boring background description, prosaic emotional dialogues and for so many characters. At the end of this we are left with one dimensional characters. There isn't a single character, including the protagonist (whoever that is?) that is even two dimensional. It is difficult to impossible to relate or care about any of the characters. One could not care less if a character went up the mountain, or down, or just round and round. It felt weird to be so enormously apathetic about any character falling in or out of peril on the slopes.

Acting: I suppose some of the bigger actors tried to do the best they could with the small parts and insipid dialogues, but the actors in the leading parts failed to deliver. The portrayal was dead-pan throughout.

Direction, Script-writer: The only thing that could compare to the everest in this movie is the colossal failure of the director and the script-writer. A mediocre school-boy writing and presenting his first essay ever in school would do about the same as these two. A directionless rambling of random excerpts from a book about the story. When you watch how some directors and script-writers can get a character under your skin in a few minutes you realize just how bad a job was done in this movie.

Movie is art ... not a tax-return form: One can understand that the director wanted to be true to the actual story to the letter, with no dramatization, with an assumption that the grandiose setting, that is the Everest, would naturally and automatically impress itself upon the mind of the audience. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the audience cannot implicitly feel the bone chilling winds, or the asphyxiating low oxygen air, or acrophobia, or fatigue sitting in their cushioned seats. They need to be shown these things visually, or through the condition of characters they have been made to care about conveyed through dialog or action. However, Everest director seems to forget these very fundamentals of movie making.

Conclusion: Go see 'Touching the void' instead of this movie and if you have already seen 'Touching the void', then go see it again and it will surely be more suspenseful, entertaining, and rewarding than watching Everest.